NHS trial under way

Patients avoid hospital trips

Patients with hip and knee replacements are taking part in a trial at Forth Valley Royal which could avoid travel to the Larbert hospital for face-to-face clinic appointments.

It involves staff checking patients’ progress by telephone and, if there are no particular problems, asking them to attend a routine xray within the next three weeks at a time convenient to them.

This could be at Forth Valley Royal Hospital or Stirling Community Hospital.

The pilot is already freeing up consultant time to see new and urgent cases and avoiding patients having to travel to hospital for appointments.

Several hundred hip and knee replacements are carried out annually in NHS Forth Valley.

Checks are made after a year and then at five-year intervals until 15 years.

After that patients normally undergo an annual assessment. The vast majority of joint replacements are now scheduled to last 10-15 years, due to the type of materials used and advances in anaesthetics and placement techniques.

NHS FV arthroplasty nurse Mary McDermott said: “We watch for signs of loosening and wear and tear. Once that happens we can work with patients to decide whether to revise or re-do the replacement joint.

“Checks always used to be carried out at face-toface clinics but patients contacted so far by phone like the idea. It means they don’t need to take time out to travel to hospital. They also appreciate the three week window for an x ray because it gives them a choice of when they can attend.”

Patients who report problems or pain when contacted by phone are booked in for a face-to-face appointment as soon as possible and have their x-ray before attending.

Staff are currently designing feedback forms to evaluate the benefits of the pilot service and, if successful, the approach could be used at other clinics.

The pilot is also contributing to a new initiative which gives health and social care practitioners across Forth Valley the opportunity to make changes which will free up appointment time, create extra capacity and reduce pressure on frontline services.

Checks used to be carried out at face-to-face clinics